SPLASH '11 Workshop: Beyond Green-Field Software
Workshop date:
Sunday October 23, 2011, 8:30am - 5pm
Location: SPLASH '11
Conference in Portland
Website
Contents
Workshop
Overview
This is the website for the SPLASH workshop on
legacy software issues.
Legacy code can be an asset in the software business, but it
can also create a considerable amount of extra work.
Most software is not a product of green field development:
many development efforts must reuse code and interfaces
from pre-existing systems.
Change and growth in requirements
and functionality occur in every system -- and it is
especially critical to manage the evolution process in modern
agile software processes.
The management of change
and growth may in fact become a daily activity, so a well-defined
set of techniques and tools for doing reengineering
and refactoring are critical to success.
Leveraging existing software assets are even more important
in today's web-centric and cloud-based environment.
It is easier and faster to build new apps by
building adapters and wrappers for legacy systems and
components.
Successful projects that use legacy code must pay attention
to people, processes, and tools. The goal of this workshop
is to identify the issues facing individuals, teams, and
companies that need to build on their legacy base. We
plan to explore these subjects:
- The techniques for wrapping and refactoring: software
evolution techniques used to add new functionality to
existing software systems -- and which of the techniques
are best for small systems, large systems, embedded
systems, and open source software.
- The technical and organizational skills that are needed
in a team that is constantly working with legacy systems
and legacy modules.
- How to manage a software system that demands constant
change and growth.
- Assessing the business value of refactoring and reengineering
efforts.
- Impact of architecture on software reuse and evolution.
- How agile development practices affect the creation of
long-lived software modules and components.
- How to measure the quality of reused, reengineered,
and refactored code.
- When to abandon a legacy software reengineering effort.
- Exploration of some of the good design for reuse
practices.
This workshop will cover some of the same topics as our
OOPSLA 2003 workshop, and it will address some of the
changes in the software industry in the past eight years.
How to join the Workshop
What are your
experiences in refactoring, reengineering, and reuse?
You can join in on the discussion. Here is
how you can become part of the workshop:
- Contact one of
the workshop organizers listed below.
- Prepare a
one-page "position paper" -- containing your ideas, questions, and
experiences. Send your position paper to mancl - AT -
alcatel-lucent.com.
The deadline for position papers is August 26.
- The position papers will be used as a starting
point for planning the workshop's activities.
Some suggestions for what to put in the position paper:
- Your position paper might explain some of your personal
experiences (positive and/or negative) with reusing and reengineering
legacy code and designs.
- Or, you might also describe some specific methods or tools
that you used to make refactoring and reengineering work effectively.
- Or, you could describe some of your own philosophy of
legacy software reengineering-- to contribute to the discussion.
- Finally, you could use your position paper to ask some
questions -- some of the things that puzzle you about legacy code.
The workshop is organized as a
set of interactive brainstorming and discussion sessions. The
workshop participants will prepare a poster to present at the
SPLASH poster session on Monday afternoon.
Workshop committee:
- Dennis Mancl (mancl - AT - alcatel-lucent.com)
- Bill Opdyke (opdyke - AT - acm.org)
- Steve Fraser (sdfraser - AT - acm.org)
Link to the original workshop proposal: beyond_green_field.pdf
Position Papers
[Position papers will be posted on this website later...]
Extra material
Reports from the OOPSLA 2003 conference:
Useful articles to read before the workshop:
Last modified: May 23, 2011